A sloop-rigged boat with a crew of two was dancing before a brisk breeze through blue Bermuda waters. Off to the right, Hamilton rose sheer and colorful from the bay. At the tiller sat the white-clad figure of Adrienne Lescott. Puffs of wind that whipped the tautly bellying sheets lashed her dark hair about her face. Her lips, vividly red like poppy-petals, were just now curved into an amused smile, which made them even more than ordinarily kissable and tantalizing. Her companion was neglecting his nominal duty of tending the sheet to watch her. "Wilfred," she teased, "your contrast is quite startling--and, in a way, effective. From head to foot, you are spotless white--but your scowl is absolutely 'the blackest black that our eyes endure.' And," she added, in an injured voice, "I'm sure I've been very nice to you." "I have not yet begun to scowl," he assured her, and proceeded to show what superlatives of saturnine expression he held in reserve. "See here, Drennie, I know perfectly well that I'm a sheer imbecile to reveal the fact that you've made me mad. It pleases you too perfectly. It makes you happier than is good for you, but----" "It's a terrible thing to make me happy, isn't it?" she inquired, sweetly. "Unspeakably so, when you derive happiness from the torture of your fellow-man." "My brother-man," she amiably corrected him. "Good Lord!" he groaned in desperation. "I ought to turn cave man, and seize you by the hair--and drag you to the nearest minister--or prophet, or whoever could marry us. Then, after the ceremony, I ought to drag you to my own grotto, and beat you." "Would I have to wear my wedding ring in my nose?" She put the question with the manner of one much interested in acquiring useful information. "Drennie, for the nine-hundred-thousandth time; simply, in the interests of harmony and to break the deadlock, will you marry me?" "Not this afternoon," she smiled. "Watch for the boom! I'm going to bring her round." The young man promptly ducked his head, and played out the line, as the boat dipped her masthead waterward, and came about on the other tack. When the sails were again drumming under the fingers of the wind, she added: "Besides, I'm not sure that harmony is what I want." "You know you'll have to marry me in the end. Why not now?" he persisted, doggedly. "We are simply wasting our youth, dear." His tone had become so calamitous that the girl could not restrain a peal of very musical laughter. "Am I so very funny?" he inquired, with dignity. "You are, when you are so very tragic," she assured him. He realized that his temper was merely a challenge to her teasing, and he wisely fell back into his customary attitude of unruffled insouciance.